


Everything is Different the Second Time Around

by connerluthorkent



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dialogue Heavy, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode: s05e11 They Did What?, Pre-Episode: s05e12 The Beginning..., Requited Love, Sappy, Season/Series 05, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, again...if you want it to be, but y'all know to expect that from me, past napkins is mentioned but very much dead and buried
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 17:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21305648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connerluthorkent/pseuds/connerluthorkent
Summary: Lee and Ed have a chat. Then, after some gentle prodding, Ed has a much needed conversation with Oswald.
Relationships: Edward Nygma & Leslie Thompkins, Jim Gordon/Leslie Thompkins (mentioned), Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 48
Kudos: 295





	Everything is Different the Second Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> I do not consent to my work being hosted on any unofficial apps. 
> 
> This is, in essence, two extremely long conversations hinged together in one. Gratuitous references to canon throughout. 
> 
> You know the drill: unbeta'ed, as always, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
> 
> Title from Regina Spektor's song "You've Got Time."

Word in the hall is they’re treating the infamous gangster Oswald Cobblepot. Lee hasn’t heard this much whispering since Bruce Wayne checked in an acid-burned, comatose Jeremiah Valeska. From what she gathers, it had been Ed who insisted Oswald go to the clinic for his eye despite Oswald’s protests, the pair bickering like an old married couple the entire time Oswald was being checked in. The story gets increasingly more elaborate every time she hears it, until the Penguin is throwing one of his infamously explosive tantrums, and Ed is holding a nurse at gunpoint until she admits him. 

So, naturally, she does the only thing she can and goes looking for them. Finds Ed, slumped over in a visitor’s chair in one of the private rooms. The bed is empty, indicating Oswald must be in surgery at that very moment. 

Ed’s visibly clenching his jaw, a sure sign of his worry.

“Hi there,” Lee greets.

He startles, a manic edge in his eyes as she comes and takes the chair on the other side of the bed.

“Lee? What are you doing here?” 

Ed sounds confused, but not hostile. 

“I owe you one,” Lee says by way of explanation. “From the night with Bane.” 

Ed buries his face in his hands, nervous fretting mussing his hair like it had been back in the Narrows. 

“And I owe him one,” Ed says, near nonsensical, voice strained. “More than one, at this point, if we’re keeping score.”

“He did try to kill you,” Lee offers, going for lightness in hopes of lifting the mood.

Ed shakes his head.

“We’re more than even on that count, and the scales have tipped in his favor, if anything. Besides,” he mutters, more to himself than her, “I’m not sure he ever really did.”

Lee hums, contemplative. She takes in Ed’s expression—the pinched corners of his lips, the worried lines around his eyes. 

She recalls what Ed had been like, during the battle with Bane—glued to Oswald’s side, checking his wounds, fretting over him like a worried mother hen. 

Lee had been on the receiving end of Ed's infatuation before. But even then, apart from a handful of kisses, Ed had hardly been so openly...demonstrative with his affection towards her, not nearly as tactile and considerate as she'd seen him be with Oswald that night.

“You love him,” she says, a revelation that doesn’t feel like much of one, “don’t you?”

Ed looks up at her, expression raw, eyes haunted. 

“‘I can’t be bought, but I can be stolen with a glance. I’m worthless to one, but priceless to two.’” 

Lee gives him a quizzical look. 

“Love. A riddle I told Oswald, when he was running for mayor.”

“So...you’re saying you loved him way back then?”

“What? No! Maybe. No. I—” Ed rakes a fretful hand through his hair once more, “I don’t know.”

Lee watches him, letting a contemplative silence fall over the both of them. Ed has never been great with emotions, she knows from personal experience. Best to just let him try to work through these things himself, free of interruption. 

Ed shatters the illusion of peace that has settled between them by barking out a sudden, bitter laugh, before words begin tumbling rapidly out of his mouth.

“I froze, Lee. Completely useless. A grenade fell right in front of us, and I just _ froze_. And then he just...jumped on top of me like it was _ nothing_. Oswald Cobblepot,” he laughs again, manic and disbelieving, “A man most known for his willingness to sacrifice anyone or anything to save himself. Something _ I’ve _ accused him of, more than once. Of being totally incapable of caring about anyone but himself. And, yet, after everything I’ve done to him...he might’ve died for me.”

The tremble in his voice suggests he wonders if Oswald won’t, still. 

Lee puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay,” she reassures him. “Everything’s going to be okay.” 

“You can’t know that,” Ed says, slipping into a familiar air of condescension, a poor attempt at masking his obvious concern. 

“I can,” Lee says, in a tone that brooks no argument, “and once he’s awake, I suggest you have a long, apparently overdue, talk with him about it.” 

“Because my track record has been so great in that regard,” Ed says, giving her a wry smile.

“Well,” Lee shrugs, dry amusement bordering on deprecating, “we can’t all be Oswald Cobblepot.” 

She and Oswald have been circling in the orbit of the same men for so long she can’t help but feel a weird kind of kinship with him. 

“I ought to know since you tried so hard to turn me into him,” she adds, causing Ed to splutter in outrage.

“I did not—!” he starts, fuming, but Lee cuts him off with a hand. 

“Oh, please, Ed. Jim wanted me to be saint Lee Thompkins of the rock, and you wanted me to be Oswald. You fell right in at my side, begging me to ‘give in’ to my darkness so I could rule the Narrows with an iron fist. Sound familiar?”

“And here you are, saint Lee, all over again,” Ed mumbles into his knees, bypassing her accusations entirely.

“And here you are, right back at Oswald’s side,” Lee shoots back, but there’s no heat in her voice. “Maybe everybody got what they deserved, in the end.” 

“Maybe so,” Ed mimics petulantly, still refusing to look up at her.

Lee lets out a beleaguered sigh. 

"I remember how you were about him, back in the Narrows,” she starts, finally getting Ed to glance at her, curiosity getting the better of him, “Vicious yet totally preoccupied. Trust me when I say, and I speak from experience...you don't hate someone that much unless you loved them, once."

“Like you and Jim?” he asks.

“Like me and Jim.” 

“And now you’re _ married_,” Ed drawls, derision in his voice. 

Lee raises her eyebrows at him, expectant. Ed stutters in return. 

“You can’t possibly be suggesting—Oswald and I—we’re not—he wouldn’t—” 

He cuts off, staring blankly ahead of himself, lost in thought.

“We’re not the domestic, marrying kind, I’m afraid,” he says evenly, voice carefully devoid of emotion.

“Maybe you’re not. Seems like he might be,” she says with a casual shrug. 

Ed squints at her, confused.

“How so?”

“Oswald Cobblepot? And his dog, and his kid, and his beautiful mansion full of beautiful things?” she raises an eyebrow. “It might not be the traditional white picket fence, but the man screams settled, stable. That’s what his desperate bids for power are all about, aren’t they? Finding a place for himself that no one else can take away?”

“I—I’ve never thought about it that way, exactly,” Ed admits 

“You’re the runner, not him.” 

“_That’s _certainly true,” Ed mutters. 

Ed is always running. From himself, from Gotham...from Oswald. 

“Takes one to know one,” Lee says, an admission. 

Ed supposes _ that’s _ also true. Lee is always running too. She’s left the city more times than he can count. A runner, like him. Not like Oswald and Jim. 

Forget Jeremiah Valeska and the bombs and the government. Ed thinks Gotham would slip into a sinkhole if either of them set foot outside the city limits. They are this city, Oswald Cobblepot and Jim Gordon. The two sides of Gotham’s dirty, murky gray streets. 

“And yet we keep coming back. Why is that?” he asks, but he knows as well as Lee does. 

It’s them, it’s always them. Oswald and Jim, two magnetic forces that keep drawing Ed and Lee back into Gotham again and again.

“Gluttons for punishment, I guess,” Lee says wryly.

They share a knowing smile before falling into a companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"I'm surprised you're both here, honestly,” Lee admits after a beat, “I thought you'd be almost to the mainland in that sub by now."

"Oswald wanted to stay," Ed explains.

Lee pauses, considering.

"...Huh."

"What?" Ed asks, suddenly defensive.

"Oh, nothing, nothing. It's just,” Lee quirks a sharp smile at him, too knowing, “when I wanted to stay, you stuck a knife in my gut."

"As I have already pointed out, you stabbed me first!" Ed snaps with childish stubbornness. 

Lee just shakes her head.

"Oswald must have some power of persuasion,” she muses, sounding reluctantly impressed. “What on earth did he say to get you to stay?"

"He...well he didn't _ say _anything,” Ed admits, “Not...not exactly.”

Lee raises an expectant eyebrow, gesturing for him to go on. 

“I told him if he wasn't coming, I was taking the submarine and the treasure with or without him. And he just marched right back into Gotham without me! After he rattled off some nonsense about…" he trails off, biting his lip suddenly, as though he’s said more than he meant to.

"About?" Lee prompts.

The look Ed gives her is shifty.

"About how I could learn something," he starts, tentative, "if I just listened to my heart instead of my head."

Lee's lips purse into a little round "o."

"I see," she says, "and then you followed _ him _back into the city."

Ed looks embarrassed, shifting uncomfortably, but he nods in agreement.

"Well, I'll be damned,” she breathes, momentarily stunned. “Guess Penguin really has gotten under your skin, hasn’t he?” 

Ed huffs, steamrolling ahead, refusing to dignify her comment with a response. 

"If it's any consolation to _ you_,” he says, enunciating his words with a dagger-sharp edge, “I thought Oswald _ was _going to stab me later that night. Pulled out the knife and everything. But he didn't do it. Couldn't, I guess." 

His shoulders slump into a defeated shrug.

"Neither of us could," he admits.

A terrible, deafening silence falls in the wake of his words, their weight settling darkly over the clean, white surfaces of the hospital room. 

And then Lee doubles over, overcome by hysterical laughter, her entire body shaking with it.

"What?!" Ed demands, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder, voice indignant with a dangerous edge. "What is it?!"

Lee struggles back into a sitting position, wiping the tears from her eyes, entirely unruffled by Ed’s death grip on her shoulder.

"You really,” she gasps, trying to catch her breath, tears of mirth still running down her cheeks, “you really do just keep repeating patterns over and over again until you get them right, don't you, Ed?"

An involuntary giggle escapes from Ed’s lips, and then another, and another, until he, too, is doubled over in manic, hysterical laughter, the pair of them practically shrieking with it, the absurd hilarity of the entire situation. 

Once they’ve finally managed to get ahold of themselves, their uproarious laughter quieting to no more than a few shaky chuckles, Ed shoots her a sheepish smile, an unspoken acknowledgment. 

"You didn't,” Lee starts, carefully wiping the tears from her eyes as she gets ahold of herself, “you didn’t really threaten the staff at gunpoint, did you?"

Ed’s smile widens, showing too many teeth.

"There may have been some vaguely insinuated threats about prioritizing the care of Mr. Cobblepot, the former mayor who fought valiantly at the battle of Gotham where he sustained his injury,” Ed admits, glibly adding, “but at gunpoint seems like overkill."

"I thought so, too,” Lee says, a knowing smirk coming over her face at Ed's bolstering of Oswald's reputation. "You're good at that, you know."

"At what?" Ed asks, caught unaware.

"At pumping up his reputation."

"I _ was _ his Chief of Staff, and I was _ very _ good at my job,” Ed brags unabashedly, “In this instance, it just happens to all be true."

“Except he didn’t get that injury for Gotham,” Lee points out, shooting Ed a meaningful look. “He got it for you.”

Ed fails to suppress the far too pleased grin that tugs at the corners of his mouth. All Lee can do is shake her head and laugh. 

When Oswald comes to, the dull throbbing pain in his eye rousing him from sleep, he finds Ed asleep. His body is doubled over the hospital bed, his hair rumpled and curling at the edges where his head rests on the cool sheets against Oswald’s thigh. He’s taken off his gloves, and he’s clasping one of Oswald’s hands firmly in his own. 

Oswald squeezes Ed’s hand instinctively at the sight, and the unexpected pressure causes Ed to jerk awake. He sits up in one swift motion, blinking owlishly up at Oswald, glasses askew on his nose. 

“I’m sorry,” Oswald says, voice rough from the extended period of disuse, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Oswald!” Ed says, the sheer volume of his voice making Oswald wince. “You’re awake!”

“So it would seem,” Oswald replies dryly, mouth curling with amusement at Ed’s outburst of jittery energy.

“How are you feeling?” Ed asks, voice thankfully softening. 

Oswald squints into the harsh fluorescent hospital lighting with his one good eye.

“I could use a drink,” he admits wryly.

“Oh! Of course!” Ed says, dutifully retrieving the water glass from the bedside table and offering it to Oswald.

Oswald smiles fondly, not bothering to correct him. 

“Thank you,” Oswald says, sagging back into the pillows after Ed has not only helped him into a sitting position but unnecessarily tipped the glass up for him to drink. 

Ed gives him a distracted smile as he replaces the water. He makes to sit back on the edge of the bed before seeming to think better of it, ending up shuffling awkwardly beside the bed, caught somewhere between sitting and standing. 

Oswald barely manages to suppress an eyeroll.

“Ed, please, just—” 

Oswald lets out an impatient huff, shifting until he’s positioned on the right side of the bed. He pats the left side pointedly.

Ed hesitates, but at Oswald’s look obediently slides in beside him, sitting against the headboard with his long legs splayed out on top of the thin hospital blanket. 

He fiddles with a thread in the fabric before pulling something out of his suit jacket pocket.

"Here," Ed says, practically flinging the scrap of paper into Oswald’s hand.

Oswald squints down into his palm. It’s an origami penguin, nervously folded out of sheets from a doctor’s prescription pad Ed had clearly pilfered.

"How sentimental of you," Oswald says, the dry words undercut by his voice, breathless and far too fond.

Oswald stifles a surprised noise as Ed takes his free hand again, holding it between both of his own. 

"Oswald…” he starts hesitantly, “can we please talk about this?"

"Talk about what?" Oswald asks, trying to keep the nervous edge out of his voice.

"You saved my life," Ed says, dark eyes serious. 

Oswald takes a shaky breath.

"As I see it," he counters, "you wouldn't have even been in the city if it wasn't for me in the first place. I owed it to you to make sure nothing happened to you."

He refrains from saying what he really feels, what creeps up in his bones too possessive to say out loud. That Ed is _ his _ to protect and has been since his early mayoral days, since Ed swore he'd do anything for him.

“And was holding a knife against my back later that evening also part of your plan to make sure nothing happened to me?” Ed asks, voice flat. 

Oswald flinches, tugging at the hand locked in Ed’s tight grip. A feeble attempt to untangle himself from Ed’s vicelike hold. But Ed refuses to let go. 

Oswald had expected Ed’s rage, fiery and righteous, if they had ever managed to broach the knife’s edge they had quite literally been balanced on that night. But in spite of his crushing hold on Oswald’s hand, his face is carefully devoid of emotion as he stares blankly straight ahead of himself. Too still, too disengaged. A sign, Oswald fears, of a snake coiling before it prepares to strike.

“I don’t know,” Oswald says, high and stilted, wading into treacherous waters, “was your doing the same an attempt to thank me for saving your life?”

Ed’s stiff posture loosens at the comment, like a string being cut, his entire body sagging suddenly into the hospital bed. 

He smiles, small and preoccupied, tilting his head back in Oswald’s direction without ever looking at him. 

“I only pulled out mine because you pulled out yours,” he admits, biting his lip. “I was waiting to see what you would do.”

Ed is playing with Oswald’s fingers, a clear sign of his nerves. There’s a surrealism to the intimacy of the moment, given the subject matter at hand, that Oswald can barely wrap his head around. 

“But you couldn’t do it,” Ed finally looks at him, lips curling into a small smile, large brown eyes shining, “could you?”

Oswald falters at the open sincerity on Ed’s face. 

“I—I could have,” he admits, overly honest.

The brief flash of hurt that comes over Ed’s face is so painful, he has no choice but to plunge on.

“But I realized...I didn’t want to.” 

“I might’ve killed you,” Ed says, all logic, like he’s looking to start a fight. 

“But you didn’t,” Oswald counters, feeling as though he’s in some bizarre game of reverse one-upmanship that they are both destined to lose. 

Ed looks entirely too warm and pleased at the observation. It’s the funhouse mirror logic of Gotham at work, to take an acknowledgment from someone that you _ didn’t _actually follow through on killing them as some form of coquettish flattery. 

“Besides,” Oswald continues, too candid, “from my own disturbingly thorough experience, there are worse ways to go.” 

Ed’s grip on his hand tightens.

“Perhaps,” Ed says, mouth drawing down into a tight line, “I wasn’t a fan, personally. But maybe it’s different, to die in the arms of someone who truly loves you.”

Oswald’s heartbeat quickens. He feels suddenly as though he’s eavesdropping, stumbling onto a conversation he has no business being privy to, like he’s been dropped back into his days as a spy for all sides. Trying to put together a puzzle when half the pieces are missing. 

“When it was Lee and I,” Ed goes on, unconcerned with Oswald’s internal crisis and entirely too glib, “we both followed through.” 

Oswald had suspected, when he found them sprawled out in the Narrows with matching knife wounds, but he’d never fully known. The deadliest of the lovers’ embrace, an outcome Oswald had seen coming from miles away but had been powerless to stop. The vindication should have been satisfying, but, of course, it wasn’t, with Ed lying there cold and limp. No infuriatingly animated glower to gloat over, only a lifeless corpse over which to weep. 

Oswald can feel himself bristling at the mere mention of Ed and Lee’s doomed love affair and does his best to try and tamp down the impulse. Ed’s trying to tell him something, though he’s unsure what. Oswald peers at him, searching. 

“You and Lee have more in common than you might suspect,” Ed says, an abrupt segue, and as frustratingly opaque as ever. “Perhaps that’s why both Jim and I ended up absorbed in your orbits.”

Oswald finds himself speechless, overcome by the overwhelming urge to laugh at the notion that he had ever ensnared Jim Gordon, had ever ensnared _ Edward _ even a fraction as much as the beautiful, compassionate, _ saintly _ Dr. Lee Thompkins had. She has had them both, to touch and toss away as she pleased. Oswald has had neither, not for more than fleeting moments of tenuous friendship, soured into aloof partnership at best, bitter resentment at worst. 

“Lately, I feel like I’m retracing my steps,” Ed says, interrupting the dark whirlpool of Oswald’s thoughts, “as though I’ve been given a second chance to do things differently.” 

Oswald sucks in a breath, haunted by the last time Ed and he had discussed second chances.

“Like I’m fated to keep repeating the loop until I get it right.” 

“Fated, even,” Oswald repeats, eyebrow quirking.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Ed points out.

“You brought it up first,” Oswald counters. 

“So you do remember,” Ed says, sounding breathless with the revelation. 

“Of course I do,” Oswald says, far too soft.

_ How could I forget? _ he doesn’t say, but it pangs in his chest anyway.

“Have you ever felt that way?” Ed asks, peering at Oswald curiously, “Like you’d been given a second chance?”

“More than once,” Oswald says, smiling wryly. “It certainly felt that way the day I saved you from Sofia’s goons on the pier. Like I’d been presented with a choice, and if I just chose correctly, maybe I could get back what I had lost. Recover our friendship.” 

He gives Ed a sardonic nod.

“And look how well that turned out.”

Ed’s hand clamps down on his, hard enough he feels Ed’s carefully trimmed nails digging into his skin, undoubtedly pressing little half-crescent moons into the back of his hand. 

“That wasn’t your fault,” Ed says, eyes downcast, as close as Oswald’s ever heard him to chastened. 

Oswald barrels on, fearing an acknowledgment will put Ed on the defensive. 

“And then fate gave me another chance when I found you and Lee in the Narrows.” 

“I’m not sure how finding me bleeding out on the floor qualifies as a second chance,” Ed says dryly, “unless you mean a second chance to be rid of me.” 

Oswald huffs, annoyed. 

“No, not that, obviously. Don’t be deliberately obtuse,” he chides. “I saved your life, didn’t I? Besides, I wasn’t talking about you. I mean, yes, saving you merits as a kind of second chance, but I meant...saving Lee.”

He says the last two words hesitantly, circling far too close to topics he’d probably be best to avoid.

“Oh,” is all Ed says. 

Her name hangs unspoken in the air between them. _ Isabella_. 

Oswald had learned his lesson. Or, at least, he had tried to. He wouldn’t let his own feelings jeopardize whatever tentative good faith still existed between himself and Ed. He wasn’t prepared to see Ed’s dark brown eyes blinking up at him, awake, _ alive _ once more only to have him spitting out accusations that Oswald had destroyed his chance at one true love _ again_. Even if that love _ had _ rewarded Ed by burying a knife in his side. 

“You know,” Ed says, conversationally, “I tried that. Saved Jim from that explosion out at Valeska’s.”

“How noble of you,” Oswald deadpans.

“And then I tried to kill him!” Ed crows, a giggle bursting out of him, his face lighting up in that too wide showman’s grin.

The corners of Oswald’s mouth twitch, trying to offer up his own weak smile in turn, but he finds he can’t manage it. Ed’s own gleeful expression quickly fades, rubbing the back of his neck in a rueful gesture. 

“I suppose,” he says, tentative, “it’s possible I’ve imposed an unfair double standard, when it comes to you.”

“Do you think so?” Oswald asks, trying to keep the venom out of his sarcastic tone. “I do seem to remember something about a Doughtery you mentioned, back when we first became acquainted.”

“Officer Doughtery was an absolute snake of a man, and I’d kill him again right now if given the opportunity!” Ed slams his fist against the hospital bed railing, causing the small cot to shudder slightly. 

Oswald holds up his hands placatingly.

Ed sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“But I take your point,” he admits. 

“Ed, believe me, when it comes to this,” Oswald gestures between the two of them, “my sins even up with yours, without question.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Ed says, shaking his head. “By my count, you’ve saved my life at least twice over since I refused to give you up.”

“Oh, Ed,” Oswald says, voice dripping with fond condescension, “always so good with numbers.” 

Ed shoots a wry smile.

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

Oswald shrugs his shoulders, a silent allowance.

“I promise you, though, there’s no need to keep count. I’m not keeping score.”

“Seems out of character for you,” Ed says, considering Oswald with a slight tilt of his head.

“Perhaps,” Oswald allows, his own eyes dropping to their hands still clasped tightly between their thighs.

A silence falls between them, heavy but not unpleasant.

“I do have one question,” Ed says after a long moment. 

“Just one?” Oswald quips. 

Ed rolls his eyes, making a show of his exasperation, but the slight upturn of his lips undermines him.

“You weren’t there,” he continues, “when Strange restored me after I was stabbed. Why?”

Oswald’s shoulders tense slightly.

“I am a busy man, Ed,” he says, clipped. 

“But you didn’t come to me at all. What did you do, just dump me with Strange and then leave?”

A flare of anger lights up Oswald’s chest at the accusation, thrown out so callously.

“If you must know, I did keep in contact with Strange about your progress. And I did come to look after you, before you regained consciousness,” Oswald says, tone petulant. “He let me know when you had been restored, and I had some of my informants tail you to assure me he wasn’t bluffing and had done no visible harm to you. The...other damage I was entirely unaware of. I’m sorry. I should have kept a closer eye on it, knowing Strange and all he’s capable of.” 

He allows the regret to seep into his voice, annoyed at Ed’s dismissiveness but still wanting him to know the apology is sincere. 

“But _ you _never came to me,” Ed insists. “You didn’t even tell me you were the one that saved me until I confronted you.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,” Oswald admits, “after everything.”

“What do you mean?” Ed asks.

Oswald huffs out a frustrated sigh. For such a clever man, Ed can be remarkably dense.

“We didn’t exactly part on the best terms, Ed,” Oswald reminds him. 

“All the more reason you saving me doesn’t add up,” Ed counters. "I deceived you, but you didn’t seek revenge. You had already saved my life once before, and then you did it again, even in the wake of my betrayal. I owed you my life twice over, but you didn’t come to collect. It doesn’t add up.”

“I already told you, Ed. I needed you.”

“For friendship, yes, that’s what you said,” Ed says, his brow furrowing in troubled confusion. “But that doesn’t make sense either, because you didn’t come and seek out that friendship. You didn’t even come propose an alliance. You had the leverage. I owed you a debt. So why wouldn’t you—” 

Ed freezes mid-statement, as though struck by sudden realization. The expression on his face is dizzying, as though he’s suddenly been tipped over, his world going topsy-turvy from one instant to the next. 

“You didn’t expect anything in return,” he says, breathless, several puzzle pieces shifting around at once until they’re finally clicking into place, “when you saved me in the Narrows, you didn’t expect anything in return.” 

Oswald’s shoulders droop, an attempt to make himself smaller as he sinks deeper into the the thin hospital mattress. 

“What would I expect?” he mumbles, ducking his head to avoid Ed’s razor-sharp gaze. 

Ed reaches forward with the hand not clutching Oswald’s own and cups Oswald’s chin, forcing him to meet his gaze.

“‘Love,’” Ed quotes, staring into Oswald’s one exposed pale green eye, “‘is about putting someone else’s needs and happiness before your own.’”

Oswald bites his lip, feeling his face grow hot, his eyes burning with sudden unshed tears. 

“So you’ve told me,” he says, voice shaky. 

“You love me,” Ed says abruptly, conviction in his voice. “You still love me.”

Oswald squirms under the intense scrutiny of Ed’s gaze. He wishes he could curl in on himself and vanish, escape from Ed’s dark, knowing eyes. But Ed refuses to let go, the feel of his hand steady on Oswald’s face, holding his gaze. Unwilling to let Oswald back down from this, a challenge from Ed he fears he can’t meet. 

Oswald hunches in on himself, like a cornered animal gearing up to attack. And then he does, with the only thing he has left in his arsenal: the truth. 

“Yes, of course I still do!” he snaps, his eyes fiery with outrage and still brimming with tears. “I’ve loved you this entire time, you absolute buffoon of a man!”

Ed grins at him, showing all his pearly white teeth, the cat who caught the canary. Then he leans down and captures Oswald’s lips with his. 

Oswald whimpers helplessly into the kiss, his body going limp against Ed’s, melting at the first press of Ed’s mouth against his. Their entangled hands are still trapped awkwardly between them, but Oswald can’t find it in him to let go. His other hand slides up Ed’s arm to dig hard into his shoulder, a reminder that Ed is here, solid and real, and not a drugged remnant of Oswald’s post-surgery fantasies.

Ed pulls back but doesn’t go far, his forehead still pressed against Oswald’s. Oswald blinks at Ed in amazement, finding that Ed’s eyes are still closed, and he’s smiling. 

“‘I can't be bought, but I can be stolen with one glance. I’m worthless to one, but priceless to two,’” he recites, warm brown eyes finally opening to peer at Oswald. 

Oswald opens his mouth to answer, but Ed cuts him off before he has the chance to speak. 

“I love you,” he says, his giddiness at the admission making him look almost boyish, like the Ed Oswald met in his apartment all those years ago, “I love you, too.” 

“Ed,” Oswald gasps, all other words escaping him, “Ed.”

Ed brings Oswald’s hand up to his lips, brushing his lips over Oswald’s knuckles. 

“You mentioned something, after the battle of Gotham, about starting anew?” Ed asks, raising an expectant eyebrow. 

Oswald nods numbly, still in a daze.

“So, I was thinking...maybe we could pick back up right where we left off?” 

“And...where was that?” Oswald asks haltingly.

“Dinner, maybe? At the mansion,” Ed twinkles. “Eight o’clock?”

Oswald feels his entire throat constrict. Edward can’t possibly be...he can’t possibly be suggesting…

“Ed,” he says again, a soft, uncertain exhale.

Ed kisses his cheek, chaste and tender. Oswald feels his heart pounding in his chest at even this faintest brush of Ed’s lips.

“Why don’t you bring the wine, this time?” Ed asks, giving Oswald a hopeful smile.

It’s Ed all over, that compulsion to meticulously complete what he’s already started. A weakness Oswald had once reveled in exploiting, transformed into an endearing quirk that now makes Oswald’s heart flutter with hope. Because it seems that finally, after all this time, Ed is ready to follow through with a new script.

“It’s a date,” Oswald says, voice full of false bravado as he gives Ed’s chest an affirmative tap.

“Yes,” Ed says, steadily holding his gaze, dark eyes threatening to swallow Oswald whole, “it is.”

As they smile at each other, long repressed affection finally spilling out between them, Oswald finds his body relaxing into the pillows suddenly, exhaustion finally overtaking him, both from post-surgery fatigue and this rollercoaster of a conversation with Ed. 

“Dinner will have to wait, I’m afraid,” he mumbles, words a bit blurred at the edges. “You’ll forgive my poor manners, but I am utterly exhausted.”

“I’ll try not to hold it against you,” Ed says, gaze still entirely too fond. 

Oswald settles down on his side of the bed, readying himself to sleep, but starts when Ed lets out a disgruntled noise low in his throat. Then he’s tugging gently at Oswald, rearranging them so that Oswald’s head is snugly secured on his chest, careful of his patched eye as he wraps one long arm around Oswald’s slender shoulders. Oswald can hear the steady thrum of Ed’s heart as he tucks his chin against the crown of Oswald’s head. 

“Goodnight, Oswald,” Ed says, pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

Oswald finds he’s too tired to reply, letting out a contented sigh in answer. 

That's how Lee finds them when she comes to check on Oswald later, wound tightly around one another, fast asleep in the tiny hospital bed.


End file.
